


The Mountain I Climb Will Always be Better Than You

by 34c



Category: Undertale, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Chara has ptsd and is a sad little child, Child Abuse, Other, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, also this is kinda a prequel to some events in undertale i guess???, mostly relating to chara's fall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 04:26:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5234033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/34c/pseuds/34c
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A theoretical look at what may have prompted Chara to climb Mt. Ebott.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mountain I Climb Will Always be Better Than You

The wind and rain stung.

Chara felt the cold rain drip down their face, stinging with a physical, but natural pain that Chara welcomed. They trudged their little feet higher and higher up the mountain’s side.

They realized though, just a few minutes later, that all that effort paid off very little. Chara turned around and saw that their village was still in sight. They saw some children, frolicking and playing around in the golden flowers that graced the village’s presence.

Chara whined at the sight of the beautiful things. But they managed to turn their backs and start steady again on their ascent up the mountain.

~

“Oh Chara, you know not to go that way!”

“Chara dear, be a good girl and go back to your daddy. I’ll stand here, making sure you don’t leave.”

“Chara, don’t leave us. We love you.”

~

The memories sang in a singsong voice. Chara fell down to their knees at the thought of their mother’s voice, calling them a girl. That sweet, syrupy voice that promised happiness and love, it permeated and drilled itself into their head like a methodic rhythm. Chara however, wasn’t too fond of the music.

They never saw that in their mother. Never did they see those eyes as loving. Chara stopped for a bit and huddled their knees together and let the memories and rain hit them. They hated themselves for stopping and resting. They were tired; an eight year old isn’t one to make such a trip easily.

But it was easier than going back there. Anything was. The rain’s cold, wet blanket of water felt better than anything anyone in the village ever did. Chara enjoyed the cold rain soaking their little knit yellow and green sweater; it felt like a love they never felt and so desperately wanted. If they cried at all into the sweater, it made no difference as the sweater was soaked too much to be anymore wet.

Soon, Chara heard someone’s voice close by. They got up, shaking some of the water off and stumbled trying to run away from the voice.

“Hey, kid! I know you’re here! Come on, do I gotta do this every time?”

Chara heard it again. The voice. It wanted to bring them back to the village. Again.

Motivated by pain and fear, Chara ran faster. The rain seemed to pound harder and harder the further they got. It got to such a point where they could no longer hear their own thoughts: only the rain rang in their ears.  
Chara huffed and pushed themselves to run harder. They had no idea how far up the mountain they were now; they didn’t care. They let the overwhelming sound of rain engulf their ears, and let the mud of the mountain’s side be the anchor in which they pushed themselves higher. They let their lungs be free, they were focused on running now they couldn’t feel themselves breathe.

Higher, higher, Chara had to go higher.

Chara felt their adrenaline spike. They felt it mixed with the waves of the voice of their mother, a poison of false hope and broken promises. They pushed their feet and now ruined shoes against the sloppy, dark earth to push themselves higher.

Further, further, Chara needed to get further away.

And with that notion in their mind, Chara suddenly recalled the first time they tried to climb the mountain.

~

“Chara! Oh Chara, my sweet baby child! Come here, mommy’s so worried about you.” The woman hugged Chara, who was even smaller than they were now. She smelled like fresh flowers.

“My little flower, never climb the mountain again. It’s dangerous. No one has ever returned.”  
Dangerous.

Mt. Ebott was dangerous.

Not the hitting. Not the stick. They weren’t ‘dangerous.’ They were ‘necessary.’

Chara hugged their mother out of habit. And their mother happily returned it. Soon, she took them inside their hut and shut the door. Chara dropped her hand and ran to the middle of the room.

“You nasty little brat! Do you know how bad this makes me look?! All the women in this village, all the fathers...” Her mother paused, kneeling down to pick up a small, thin stick.  
“They all think horrible of me! Because you won’t play with the other kids! Because my husband’s gone! They think he’s fucking another woman! They think I’ll forever be a shriveled widow, with a daughter who can’t hunt or play or do anything right!”

“I’m not your daughter!” Chara protested. They immediately realized their mistake.

“Yes you are!” Chara’s mother lurched forward to Chara and smacked them across the face with the stick. It stung. Chara fell down and started to cry.

“Oh boo hoo Chara! C’mon, have some respect for me! Consider me, you little gremlin! C’mon!” Chara’s mother started to cry too. She grabbed their face and held it up high, and repeatedly hit them in the face and jaw with the stick. It hit Chara in the eye once, and their tears started to hurt.

After a while, their mother let them go and went to cry in the corner. The grip she held Chara in left some small bruises, just barely visible in the light from the window.  
“Darling…go sneak outside. Say you were the klutz you were and that you fell down into thorns.”

She pointed to the backdoor. Chara quickly obliged, but instead of going out, they just sat at the back door and cried.

~

They could still feel it. The stings on the sticks. The blows of her fists. Of course, mommy’s husband never really cared his wife hit the child. After all, Chara couldn’t do anything: so they deserved it.

The resentment only made Chara climb faster. They could feel their legs course with the energy from their hatred, its sizzling made buzzed in their head. Their breathing was labored, hanging with fear, sadness, anger, and loneliness.

Chara hated how no one ever helped them. They hated being seen as the ‘village idiot,’ for of course a mother who worried so much over her child trying to climb Mt. Ebott was a good person. Of course. Chara must be the liar.

Chara resented the bruises on their hands. They resented the times they plunged their tiny fists into the ground and screamed towards the heavens, only to find the golden flowers be their only witnesses. Chara resented the way their mother hit them, apologized, hit them, apologized, and then forgot.  
“I’m…not…a toy…” They mumbled in the rain. By now, time had lost its grip. No longer was Chara aware of the time, they were only aware that the moon still stood and the rain still poured, swelling with noise. The swelling of the rain’s noise just kept getting louder and louder. Louder and louder, louder and louder, until even their self depreciating thoughts could no longer be heard.

-

Chara reached the summit with heavy feet. Their small body ached in every bone and muscle. Their lungs could barely catch up to the climax of their breaths, and Chara started to get dizzy. They couldn’t make anything out except the fuzzy rising sun in the east. They couldn’t see the hole two feet in front of them.

“Hey! Kid! What the hell, what are you doing?!” The person who had been behind Chara the whole time finally caught up to them. Chara turned around, stumbling a bit.

“Kid, c’mere, please. You’re going to fall. Let me take you back to your mother.”

“Nooooo! No no no no no no no no!” Chara screamed as they charged the person up to a couple of yards, realizing the mountain was steep. The memories of the sticks started singing again.

“Kid! Come on!”

“Nooooo!”

The person sighed with desperation and exhaustion, and approached the dizzy Chara. They grabbed their hand and started pulling them down the mountain. Chara whined and screamed in protest, trying to shake the stranger’s grip. Their mother was going to hit them again. Chara was going to get hit.

“Calm down you stupid kid. You’re coming back to the-ow!” Chara bit the stranger and hurriedly ran up to the summit again. They stopped just short of the hole, seeing no visible ground in. It was so deep.

“Kid, please. You’re being so difficult. You’ll die if you’d have taken another step near the hole.” Chara stopped. They contemplated their situation for a moment and remembered why they came here. Tears spilled out from their eyes, falling down the hole into the unknown depth.

“I…hate…humans…” Chara turned around to the stranger. “And I hate you!” Chara screamed at the person with tears on their face and big puffy cheeks. “You’re all horrible and bad and you all want to hit me!”

“Kid, wait that’s not tru-!”

Chara ignored them and stood up. They locked eyes with the person, intent on them seeing everything their little wet, bruised body was about to do.

Chara fell backward into the hole. Their world, as they fell for a few brief seconds, was quiet and dark.

**Author's Note:**

> i never thought i'd write something like this for Chara


End file.
